Bob Bashara passed a privately administered polygraph examination Wednesday night, indicating he had no involvement with his wife’s murder, his defense attorney David Griem said this morning.

Griem said his polygraph examiner — whose name he would not disclose — told him “that in his opinion, Bob did not have anything with the death of his wife.”

Griem said the second test was given to counter reports that Bashara failed a polygraph performed for the Grosse Pointe Park Police.

“If the prosecution wants to have a battle of polygraph examiners, we will,” said Griem, adding that he does not believe the person who performed the test for police is licensed by the state of Michigan.

The conflicting results underscore why such tests are almost never used in court, Griem said.

“There’s a reason they’re not admissible,” he said. “The results are often more subjective than objective.”

Source: Detroit Free Press

Then why do them? You end up arguing over nonsense.[Polygraph]

A National Academies report said this:

Almost a century of research in scientific psychology and physiology provides little basis for the expectation that a polygraph test could have extremely high accuracy.

The theoretical rationale for the polygraph is quite weak…

Research on the polygraph has not progressed over time in the manner of a typical scientific field. It has not accumulated knowledge or strengthened its scientific underpinnings in any significant manner.

And concluded it was not an appropriate tool for screening individuals who may post threats to national security. It’s also appropriate in the murder case above for the same reasons.

A huge crustacean has been found lurking 7km down in the waters off the coast of New Zealand.

The creature – called a supergiant – is a type of amphipod, which are normally around 2-3cm long.

But these beasts, discovered in the Kermadec Trench, were more than 10 times bigger: the largest found measured in at 34cm.

Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen’s Oceanlab, said: “It’s a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach.”

Tip: @tvjrennie on Twitter

Funny how things get all giant in the deep sea. This is one big bug. I wonder if it tastes like lobster.

34 cm is 13.38 inches.

Legislators on Monday broadened a proposal aimed at allowing Indiana’s public schools to teach creationism in science classes to require that such courses include origin of life theories from multiple religions.

The Senate approved the change to legislation critics had argued was unconstitutional because federal courts repeatedly have found teaching creationism violates church-state separation because of its reliance on the Bible’s book of Genesis.

The change proposed by Democratic Sen. Vi Simpson of Bloomington says any course offered by public schools teaching creationism must include origin theories from multiple religions, among them Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Scientology.

Simpson said she didn’t think the change would resolve constitutional problems, but she believed broadening the subject matter might cause local school boards to hesitate before deciding to insert religion into science classes.

Credit: @Blue_wode on Twitter

So, picture this: A whole session (or multiple) in science class learning about the 101 creation myths of the world. (Notice they forgot all the native myths from every country around the world. Those were “religions” at one time too.) Talk about a slippery slope. But, it’s good to see. Points out the absurdity with such a plan.

Again, I’ll say that this sounds like a fine idea for a comparative religions class. I would send my child to that in a heartbeat. I want them to hear my favorite one…

Odin, the son of Bur’s son Borr, killed Ymir. The blood pouring out of the giant’s body killed all the frost giants Ymir had created, except Bergelmir. From Ymir’s dead body, Odin created the world. Ymir’s blood was the sea; his flesh, the earth; his skull, the sky; his bones, the mountains; his hair, the trees. The new Ymir-based world was Midgard. Ymir’s eyebrow was used to fence in the area where mankind would live. Around Midgard was an ocean where a serpent named Jormungand lived. He was big enough to form a ring around Midgard by putting his tail in his mouth.

Urging Californians to remain vigilant, officials announce that the state recorded no deaths in 2011 for the first time in two decades.

Facing an epidemic of whooping cough that led to the deaths of 10 infants in 2010, California public health officials launched a massive vaccination effort and public awareness campaign about the disease.

And on Tuesday, they announced the payoff: no deaths in 2011, a first in two decades. The number of whooping cough, or pertussis, cases also plummeted from about 9,154 in 2010 to 2,795 in 2011, according to the California Department of Public Health.

Babies often get pertussis from parents and others who have been misdiagnosed as having asthma or bronchitis, Cherry said. So in their vaccination efforts, state and local health departments focused on vaccinating people who were around infants, including pregnant and postpartum mothers, grandparents and older siblings.

The state also passed a law in 2010 requiring the immunization of students entering grades 7 to 12. Most children are vaccinated for pertussis, but it wanes after about five years. The vaccine is included in the DTaP inoculation, which also protects against tetanus and diphtheria.

Credit: Tim Farley (@krelnik) via Twitter

This just goes to show you that vaccinations DOES work.

Phil Plait, host of Discovery Channel’s Bad Universe, will perform with George Hrab and the Geologic Orchestra at the historic Ice House in Bethlehem, Pa on February 18, 2012. The concert, entitled 21812: A Gneiss Night Out, is set for 8:00pm and tickets can be purchased at GeologicConcert.com.

Plait, an award-winning blogger at Discovery.com, and host of Phil Plait’s Bad Universe is a friend of musician George Hrab and appeared on his 2010 album Trebuchet. The two collaborated on the track Death from the Skies which is based on Plait’s book by the same name.

The February performance will be recorded and filmed for both a live album and DVD release, and along with Phil Plait, will feature a number of surprise performers including Hrab’s mother, who is a regular guest on his weekly “The Geologic Podcast.”

Source: George Hrab

Your friend and mine, Geo, is having this event which will be chock full of skeptical minds, music, fun and all sorts of sciencey goodness. I’ll be there. Will I see you?

I’m still waiting for my VIP tag, since I am a geologist…

Earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects — for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA — are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

Erik Andrulis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of life on earth and in the universe but also the structure and function of existing cells and biospheres.

The basic idea of Dr. Andrulis’ framework is that all physical reality can be modeled by a single geometric entity with life-like characteristics: the gyre.

Source: Science Daily

Um. Yeah. Maybe this guy is a genius who will herald in a paradigm shift. Or not.

The article states the his theory is unifying and explains much such as synthesizing arguments between creationism and evolution. It also substantiates the Gaia premise.

He is doing additional experiments. I believe I shall withhold judgement on this one. It won’t be accepted in my lifetime, I’m pretty sure about that.

UPDATE (28-Jan-2012): This article from ArsTechnica is critical, very critical:

The new paper was accepted by an open access journal called Life, meaning that you can freely download a copy of its 105 pages if you’re so inclined. Apparently, the journal is peer-reviewed, which is a bit of a surprise; even accepting that the paper makes a purely theoretical proposal, it is nothing like science as I’ve ever seen it practiced.

How in the world did this get into a peer-reviewed journal? It’s not clear. Life is tiny, publishing a single issue with a handful of papers in each of its two years of existence. Many of these papers seem highly speculative, so this paper isn’t completely out of line. But it should be clear to just about anyone that there’s no clear relationship between this proposed model and reality, something that is fundamental to science. It’s hard to imagine why Life’s reviewers decided it should pass peer review.

The paper would almost certainly have languished in obscurity were it not for the fact that the press office at the Case Western chose to publicize it with a press release that repeated many of the paper’s most outlandish claims.

They do make some good points. But, it is open access science and there will be some oddball research that gets through. The good thing about science is that it is self correcting. If this theory has no merit, it dies.

An Indiana Senate committee on Wednesday endorsed teaching creationism in public schools, despite pleas from scientists and religious leaders to keep religion out of science classrooms.

Senate Bill 89 allows school corporations to authorize “the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life” and specifically mentions “creation science” as one such theory.

State Sen. Scott Schneider, R-Indianapolis, who voted for the measure, said if there are many theories about life’s origins, students should be taught all of them.

Tip: @Malfeitor Ed Ondrick on Twitter

What a boneheaded move. If this passes, it will surely be contested. There is ample case law. Any legislator who supports such an obvious un-Constitutional endorsement of religion is not worth serving the people of that state. The law is the law. Want religion? Teach it to your kids yourself. Or, how about a comparitive religions class where ALL religions are represented. I’d vote for that.

Addition: from NCSE:

Testimony against the bill stressed the unconstitutionality of teaching creation science, established by the Supreme Court in 1987.

That helped. Ugh.

A strange disease in which sufferers say they find fibers, fuzz and other debris sprouting from sores on their skin is not contagious and has no clear cause, the largest-ever study of the condition called Morgellons has found.

Government health officials on Wednesday released the results of a four-year, nearly $600,000 review that found no infectious or environmental link to Morgellons, which reportedly plagues thousands of people in the United States and other countries.

The scientists suggested that Morgellons victims may suffer from a condition similar to “delusional infestation,” in which people imagine bugs or other critters invading their bodies.

“No common underlying medical condition or infectious source was identified,” wrote Eberhard and his colleagues.

Tip: @EvidenceMatters on Twitter

The results are as expected. 115 people were extensively tested and no specific cause was discovered. However, this will not be helpful to people who believe they are suffering from the disease. As the article notes, people think the government is covering up a larger problem. The problem, however, seems to be rather personal, not widespread.

Here is a link to the entire paper available on PLOS One.

For more, see Skeptoid episode: Morgellons disease and Science based Medicine.

UPDATE: This new piece from Respectful Insolence:

Perhaps the most surprising thing about this study (to me, at least) was how uncommmon Morgellons disease was. Out of nearly three million Kaiser enrollees screened, investigators only found 104 cases, for a prevalence of 3.65 per 100,000. Given the seeming “prevalence” of the disease on the Internet, one would think that it was far more common than that. It is true that this sample, as large as it is, might not be representative. It is, after all, made up of Kaiser Permanente members, which means that they all at least have a form of health insurance. They also all live in California, specifically in the Bay Area. Even so, it is rather revealing that patients complaining of classic Morgellons symptoms are actually fairly uncommon.

It’s also not at all surprising that another major finding of this paper is that, consistent with previous studies, there was no evidence of any consistent set of abnormalities in the skin of subjects complaining of Morgellons symptoms.

A strange bacterium found in California’s Mono Lake cannot replace the phosphorus in its DNA with arsenic, according to researchers who have been trying to reproduce the results of a controversial report published in Science in 20101.

A group of scientists, led by microbiologist Rosie Redfield at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, have posted data on Redfield’s blog that, she says, present a “clear refutation” of key findings from the paper.

But the authors of the Science paper are not retreating from their conclusions. “We are thrilled that our results are stimulating more experiments from the community as well as ourselves,” first author Felisa Wolfe-Simon, now at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, wrote in an e-mail to Nature. “We do not fully understand the key details of the website experiments and conditions. So we hope to see this work published in a peer-reviewed journal, as this is how science best proceeds.”

Tip: @Anxiousmedic on Twitter

Scientists fight about this stuff. And that’s OK. It is ironic that Wolfe-Simon remarks upon peer-review since her discovery was announced on TV before it had been digested by the scientific community. No one was available at that point to really question the announcement that left the public quite confused about what had just happened.

Science by press conference is a BAD idea. There is a process by which you can hash things out. I’m not clear that fighting a bad move with a blog post is the way forward. I don’t like science by blog either.

Scientists working in the dense jungles of Indonesia have “rediscovered” a large, gray monkey so rare it was believed by many to be extinct.

They were all the more baffled to find the Miller’s Grizzled Langur – its black face framed by a fluffy, Dracula-esque white collar – in an area well outside its previously recorded home range.

The team set up camera traps in the Wehea Forest on the eastern tip of Borneo island in June, hoping to captures images of clouded leopards, orangutans and other wildlife known to congregate at several mineral salt licks.

The pictures that came back caught them all by surprise: groups of monkeys none had ever seen.

In the past they were hunted to near extinction for their meat and bezoar “stones,” he said, which can, on occasion, be found in their guts.

Bezoars, as Harry Potter fans know… are believed by some to neutralize poison.

Source: NY Daily News

This story will be of interest to cryptozoologists who will take it as evidence that mystery animals are still out there. And, that animals declared extinct may have been prematurely written off – thylacines, giant lizards, giant ground sloths, etc. But, there is a difference. The monkeys were recorded outside of where they were previously documented to live. There was an incomplete data set from which to go by. So, oops. To extrapolate and say those other large animals are out there is a big stretch. People have looked. They have not found any evidence worth considering.

This is more proof that camera traps are handy investments. Yet, we still have not found the orang pendek in Indonesia. And, we haven’t found Bigfoot in America (loaded with camera traps). Camera traps catch elusive, rare creatures frequently. It’s exciting when they do. But, as noted in the article, these particular and striking monkeys remain at risk for their meat and use as traditional cures.

Photo credit: Eric Fell/Ethical Expeditions/AP